As per Bridge to India, bids have been submitted the past month regarding 500 MW solar PV tender under the Viability Gap Funding (VGF) scheme to Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI). The tender had reservation of 50 MW for Domestic Content Requirement (DCR) category and 450 MW for the open category.
Moreover, it was noted during the bidding process that there was a subdued interest by bidders in this tender when compared to other tenders that have been floated recently. There was only a single bid for the 50 MW under DCR category which is now going to be re-opened for bidding.
Adani had put in a bid for participating in 50 MW under the DCR category with a downward revision of tariff to INR 4.43/kWh. This could most probably be the reason for such low interest. Such low outcomes are also expected in the upcoming DCR projects in Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh as, as per Bridge to India. This could be due to two key reasons, one, the bidders are generally not keen in such tenders as observed in the past years, two, the higher cost of DCR modules implies that the tariff expectation for such bids will be quite high.